Covering Politics and Religion in the Sahel and the Horn of Africa

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Mali’s New Old Cabinet

On December 11, Mali’s Prime Minister Cheick Modibo Diarra resigned under pressure from junta leader Captain Amadou Sanogo. A new interim Prime Minister, Diango Cissoko, took office. On Saturday he announced the names in his new cabinet. Maliweb has the full list here (French). The government is meant to represent the country politically, regionally, and socially.

Most press outlets are stressing that the new cabinet contains many of the same faces as the previous cabinet, which was formed in August and itself partly overlapped with the cabinet that preceded it. RFI (French) calls the newest cabinet a “government of continuity.” Key ministers – Tienan Coulibaly at Economy, Tiemam Coulibaly at Foreign Affairs, Malick Coulibaly at Justice, General Yamoussa Camara at Defense, General Tiefing Konaté at Interior Security, and Colonel Moussa Sinko Coulibaly at Territorial Administration – remain unchanged. The last three (all military men) are “seen as close to the former junta,” AFP reported in August. Dr. Yacouba Traoré (bio in French here), head of the recently created Ministry of Religious Affairs, also retains his position.

The biggest changes, RFI suggests, are (1) the departure of people close to ex-PM Diarra and (2) the addition of “three new Songhai, Arab, and Tamashek (Tuareg) ministers,” i.e. representatives of northern Malian communities. RFI goes on to list reactions by Malian political actors. AFP (French) suggests that the addition of northern ministers could boost the government’s efforts at dialogue with Ansar al Din, part of the Islamist coalition that controls territory in northern Mali.

The shake-up in Bamako has left many people wondering about the prospects for political stability there as well as for a planned armed intervention in the north. Bruce Whitehouse takes on those issues in this piece, which I highly recommend you read.

I don’t think anything can or should be expected from negotiating with Ansar Dine. Negotiations are a natural part of asymmetric warfare, but this process is being used as a stalling mechanism by both sides of the equation, and essentially fills the space between a delayed military response. Neither is as serious about negotiating as they portray publicly – Ansar Dine has no room to compromise and international powers are barely open to the MNLA’s terms.